Day Three: Teaching Evening (or Extended Time) Classes

In Day Two, I listed several challenges that can occur in an evening (or extended time) class that affect students’ attention and engagement. We explored ways to help students shift gears when getting to class. Today, we’ll take a look at another one on that list, mental fatigue…its impact on your evening students and a variety of easy-to-implement ideas to reduce its potentially negative effects on learning.

Of course, some mental fatigue may already be in place when some of your students arrive. They may have a demanding job, a full day of childcare behind them, a long drive to class, something stressful going on in their personal lives, or even incomplete nutrition. Other types of mental fatigue may set in during class as a result of intense prolonged concentration, emotional reactions to not understanding something or not being interested in the class’s topic that evening, or physical fatigue, among other things.

Psychological research tells us that mental fatigue effects the human brain in several ways that can impact a student’s ability to get the most out of class:

• Normal tasks may appear to be more complicated.
  
• The process of exploring solutions to problem-solving tasks is less systematic and more inefficient.
  
• Concentration is more challenging, increasing distractability (i.e., daydreaming, looking around at irrelevant things).
  
• Ability to recall prior learning is reduced, increasing errors.
  
• Reactions to normal tasks may prompt more emotions, such as impatience, fear.
  
• Sustained effort is more difficult.

Knowing that we have some students who arrive with mental fatigue or develop it during an extended-time class, what can we do to structure the learning environment in ways that would reduce the fatigue or at least minimize its impact on student learning? How about some of these tips?

1. Evening focus: At the beginning of class, outline what the 3-5 things are that you will be focusing on this evening, and some of the ways they will be experiencing this content. Several of the ideas in Day Two reveal this information in active ways. Then, revisit this often throughout the evening in the form of short summaries, review “minutes,” and transitional or orienting statements such as “We have just completed an analysis of _____ concept, as I mentioned at the outset of class; next we’ll explore how that that concept can be utilized in…”
   
   
2. Presentations: Use the “bob and weave technique” of moving between facts, concepts, and stories or vivid examples, making the connections between them clear and frequent. When possible, use visual aids (images, video clips, graphs, maps, etc.) to anchor core ideas and provide variety (reducing distractability). Limit presentations to 10-15 minute chunks with alternating activities in between.
   
3. Core content scaffolding: Provide incomplete handouts, review sheets, worksheets, or other printed resources that students work with while listening or doing throughout the evening. Having something to complete keeps them engaged and focused better, plus provides a tangible prompt to assist in recall or homework applications of the evening’s learning outcomes.
   
4. Physical movement: Plan for regular moving around of the students (changing small groups, posting discussion results on newsprint on the walls, etc.). Even standing up and stretching every 30 minutes can make a huge difference in getting blood to the brain!
   
5. Pacing: Besides the “10-minute rule” for presentations, plot the evening schedule around logical sequencing of content focus, but frequent changes in types of activities, such as: present, pair and share a discussion question, watch a video clip and brainstorm “what to do next” in small groups (posting ideas on newsprint to the wall), dot vote on all solutions posed by all groups, short summary of learning outcomes so far, break, present again…etc. Change of any kind helps refocus attention! Complex or challenging tasks need to be broken down into smaller pieces with “report outs,” and potentially handled in the first half of the evening.
   
6. Questions: Allow time at several junctures during the evening for questions. Adult learners often have many and will be more engaged when they are given the opportunity to share and ask.
   
7. Food: If you discover that many of your students come to class without having eaten anything since lunch (or what they did eat won’t give them lasting mental energy), consider asking them if they’d like to take turns bringing something from your “brain food” list to share with the class.

Let’s hear from some of you who have noticed this mental fatigue in your students. What have you found seems to help prevent or alleviate the situation? Click the Comments link below to share your thoughts or ideas, or questions!

DAY TWO: Teaching Evening (or Extended Time) Classes

The focus of our Day Two “idea” relates to the challenge of maintaining attention and engagement when the class is a long one. Consider these facts:

1. Research says that an adult’s attention span is not much more than 30 minutes, and for many, as little as 10 minutes is what they are used to! [Fact: Maintaining focus for 2-3 or more hours is tough!]
   
2. Add to that the mental fatigue for those students who have been working all day or handling other challenges during the day, such as childcare. [Question: How much mental energy do they have to process the learning experiences you have developed for them? Are there some types of experiences that can be handled better than others?]
   
3. Add the reality that many students need to shift mental gears from whatever they do during the day to think about the issues and topics in your course. [Example: Shifting from solving problems on the job that have nothing to do with the course’s content, for example, is challenging!]
   
4. Finally, a common situation that contributes to attention issues is students may be rushing from work to class without having time to eat anything, or at least nothing that the brain can use for thinking. [Brains need nutrition!]

Let’s take a look at #3 above for today. How can you assist your evening students in getting on track quickly, shifting gears to your course’s content?

• At the conclusion of the last class, put up on the screen and post to your course web site, the opening question that will be discussed at the beginning of the next class. Then, put that question up on the front screen up to 15 minutes before class, so that it is displayed as the students arrive.
  
• Begin the class with one of the following activities to help the students get on track quickly through active learning:
  
  
  • Display a focusing question related to the opening discussion topic in which students can reply anonymously with clickers. Use the composite answers that display on the screen to spark conversation. You may want to provide 3 or 4 of these clicker questions to wet their appetite and get all of their attention “on the same page” before launching other learning activities.
    
  • Display one or more focusing questions related to the opening discussion topic (in PowerPoint, or typed and projected using the document camera) that students in pre-assigned small groups are to discuss among each other for 10 minutes. Then, taking each question one at a time, have a spokesperson from each group share or be members of a panel for that learning activity/discussion.
    
  • If you have assigned study questions, an outline, a double-entry journal, or other homework assignment that involves summarizing the critical points from the reading, have the students join a pre-assigned discussion group to negotiate a common list of no more than five critical points. Each group can share one of them during the whole class discussion.
    
  • Play a short audio or video clip from a well-known movie or television show that contains a relevant story to that night’s topic. Invite students to pair up and generate three things that were happening in the clip that relate to the reading for that evening…this is an open-book activity that gets them back into the book from whatever they were doing before coming to class. Then, call on various pairs to share one of the themes they discovered as a starting point for a whole class discussion of the critical points.
    
  • Develop a series of scenarios in which the core concepts for the evening can be used to pose solutions. Have the students write down individual solution ideas, then pair up and discuss each other’s scenarios and solutions, and then have two of the pairs combine to form a group of 4 based on the color of their scenario (blue groups have the same scenario, for example). The new group is to use the text or other resource you give them to flesh out the details of a “best” solution. Then, each scenario is presented by a group along with the detailed solution. The rest of the class is invited to comment, ask questions, offer alternative analyses, etc.

Any of these activities can help students transition from their busy jobs or home life to the exciting world of learning about your content area. What other ideas have you used to jump start your evening classes? Use the Comment button below to share your ideas!

DAY ONE: Getting Started

According to Banner, 71 faculty are teaching evening classes in the spring of 2010. In other words, over a thousand students have chosen to take a weekly or bi-weekly class that meets for much more than the usual 50 or 75-minute class period. For some courses, this is a blessing, because it gives you time to do extended simulations, labs, and other time-consuming activities that enhance learning. It also minimizes travel to campus and gives the students access to an education after day-time responsibilities. However, it also creates a different set of challenges for both you and your students.

Our 15 Ideas in 15 Days theme this semester will provide you with ideas and insights into meeting these challenges and fostering the best learning environment possible in your evening or other extended time classes. Some of these ideas have been pulled from the literature and some from the experiences of other BHC evening instructors who have shared their tips with me! Please note that at the bottom of each “idea” is a Comments link. Just click it to add your own thoughts, experiences, questions. The blog will give you several choices for signing your post. Please select one that will add your name, or type your name into the post itself.

Let’s talk in this first idea about how you can utilize some valuable time on the first night of class to get to know your evening students better. Evening classes often contain more adult learners who have a wider variety of life experiences; knowing some of them can help you:

• identify what kinds of review of prerequisite knowledge is needed prior to introducing new content
  
• make intentional decisions about how to group the students for in-class activities or group projects
  
• invite their contributions in class discussions based on their relevant work or life experiences
  
• target the course to their collective career aspirations or personal interests.
  
• identify which students are new to college and might need additional support in the early weeks of the semester

You can have the students fill out a 4x6 note card or a survey in answer to your questions, interview each other and then introduce the other to the class or to a small group in the class, or make up a skit with 2 or 3 others about something they have in common. The point is, these kinds of activities show your interest in getting to know them, set the tone for active participation and sharing, and give you valuable information. Here are a few suggestions for the kinds of information you will want to find out, one way or another:

1. Name, nickname, contact information
   
2. Job or personal experiences relevant to the course
   
3. Current work; future career aspiration
   
4. Student status: what major? What degree are they pursuing, if any? Full-time/part-time? Other course work completed at BHC or elsewhere that they think might help them in this class? Class status (freshman?)
   
5. Learning style inventory (e.g., VARK)
   
6. Knowledge survey (like a prerequisite knowledge quiz, only instead of answers, the students indicate whether each content area is new to them, they have heard of it but don’t’ know much about it, can explain it in general to someone else, or could probably teach a short lesson on it). Email me if you’d like to see an example of one (bakerm@bhc.edu).

Now what kinds of other ideas or types of questions have you implemented on the first night of class to help your students get acquainted with you and each other? Click the Comments link below.